To those who took an interest in that communication I would say that I have added about a third part of new matter; giving (inter alia) the remarkable dispatch, in full, of Earl Russell, of May 6th, above commented on. I also subjoin, in another connection, some further strictures upon one of the closing paragraphs of that dispatch, the significance of which escaped my attention at that time. I have also added another piece of evidence telling against the foreign secretary's regard for the American proclamation of blockade, which I derive from his Blairgowrie speech of September, 1863, in reply to Mr. Sumner at the Cooper Institute in New York, the same month. For the reference to this piece of confirmatory proof I am indebted to a clerical friend, who shows his appreciation of "things to come" by keeping himself well informed in public events "that now are."

I have also added to my main discussion a more detailed reply to Historicus's communication to the Times, in defense of British neutrality; thinking that, as I subjoin that communication to this article by way of appendix, I may justly avail myself of this occasion to add some further criticisms which would have too much swollen my former communication for the columns of a daily newspaper. To those who are interested in seeing justice done to the speculations and statements of Historicus, I would suggest as the logical mode of estimating the fairness of my strictures upon them to commence the perusal of the pamphlet with the Appendix. In that way at least, by reading the eminent English publicist's paper entire and in one connection, they will get a specimen of his racy style and bold rhetoric.

Perhaps it is due to the fairness of literary and legal discussion to add that I have also availed myself of the present occasion to correct several errors of quotation from the language of others, and some inaccuracies of expression of my own, which were overlooked in the haste of preparing the newspaper communication. I believe, however, that they are all of a comparatively unimportant character.

I. THE NEW POSITION OF THE BRITISH MINISTRY, THAT THE AMERICAN PROCLAMATION OF BLOCKADE OF THE CONFEDERATE PORTS NECESSITATED THE QUEEN'S PROCLAMATION OF NEUTRALITY, AN AFTERTHOUGHT.

It seems to be a settled thing that a serious demand is about being made by the United States upon England and France for the withdrawal or cancellation of their recognition of confederate belligerency. I do not propose now to discuss how that demand is likely to be received by the two great western powers of Europe, nor what should be our attitude in case of a refusal. But in anticipation of any decision which may be come to on the other side of the water, upon the first head, I desire to call attention to a noticeable change of position which Earl Russell and Historicus, the wellknown international-law correspondent of the London Times, have just assumed, at our latest intelligence from England, in regard to the basis on which that belligerent recognition originally rested on the part of England; a change of position which implies that Englishmen are unwilling to stand by the justification then put forth, or that they are preparing themselves with a new plea to meet the anticipated demands to be made by us upon their government.

Mr. Bright, in a recent masterly speech in the House of Commons on the question of the Canadian defenses, (Times, March 14,) had undertaken to tell the British representatives, with bold frankness, that the reason why Englishnten feared a feeling of hostility toward them on the part of the Americans was because they had a guilty conscience themselves. that they deserved the ill-will of the United States for having treated them so badly throughout their struggle for national existence. Mr. Bright was vehemently "no, no"-d for this by some of the members of the House; but his .speech manifestly made a profound sensation both inside and outside the parliamentary walls. The London Times forthwith launched a bitter diatribe against him, in the shape of a communication of two columns and a half from Historicus, which I propose presently to notice, and which will be found at length in the Appendix, and in two or three editorials, following up his speech, has attempted to reply to its positions. Earl Russell felt compelled to notice it in the House of Lords; and though he could not answer it formally, through that parliamentary rule which forbids allusion in one branch to words spoken in the other, he took occasion to protest emphatically against "speeches declaring that this country [England] has behaved wrongfully to the United States," as showing England's enemies "that there is a party [here at home] ready to take up the view that the United States are in the right," and then proceeded to make a detailed rejoinder to Mr. Bright's several heads of accusation. In the course of this speech, made March 23, (London Times, March 24,) Earl Russell puts forth the following noticeable explanation of the original reasons for recognizing the confederates as belligerents, which I undertake to assert is an entire change of base from that promulgated at the time to this country and to the world at large, and which was never heard of till months-certainly, till many weeks after the war began, when the course of events and the judicial decisions this side of the water rendered it convenient for England to adopt a new justification for her hasty action in recognizing, and (so) befriending, the

*

rebels. Says Earl Russell: "Every one who knows anything of the law of nations, knows perfectly well, that although a country may put down finsurgents who rise against its authority, yet that a country has no right or power to interfere wi thneutral commerce unless it assumes the position of a belligerent. But that is what the United States did. The President of the United States by his proclamation declared that the coasts of particular States were in a state of blockade, and that armed vessels belonging to those States were to be treated as pirates. * At that time Lord Campbell held the high office of lord chancellor, and of course we consulted him and the law officers of the Crown as to what should be done. Lord Campbell declared, as we all supposed he would do, that there was no course but one to pursue, namely, to regard the blockade on the part of the United States as the exercise of a belligerent right. And as belligerent rights cannot be confined to one party, but are usually exercised against somebody else, our advisers told us that we were entitled to recognize the existence of belligerent rights on the part of both the combatants and to declare her Majesty's neutrality between the two parties." [Cheers.]

The italics near the close of the extract are mine; and they naturally suggest an important difference between doing what one is only "entitled" to do, and yielding to an urgency so pressing as that just before suggested in Lord Campbell's opinion, where "there is no course but one to pursue." I apprehend that Earl Russell only meant to assert that President Lincoln's proclamation of blockade entitled the British government, not required it, to treat the two parties on a footing of equality. Historicus, in his sweeping dogmatism, had asserted two days before, in his communication to the Times, that "It was a matter not of choice, but of necessity, that the Queen of England should issue a proclamation of neutrality to her subjects, and that that proclamation should be issued without one single instant's delay."

He further denounces his contempt for Mr. Bright's knowledge of statesmanship by asserting that, "Nothing has ever so much astonished him as to find that on either side of the Atlantic any man of ordinary intelligence and education should be capable of advancing or entertaining for an instant such a complaint [as that] of the premature concession of belligerent rights to the South by Great Britain."

Now, I propose to show my readers:

First. That this proposition of Earl Russell's and Historicus's, that the President's proclamation of blockade lay at the bottom of the recognition of the confederates as belligerents, if not a new discovery, was never heard of at the time that that recognition was resolved upon; certainly that it was never put forth as its justifying motive, either in contemporaneous explanation made to the United States or to the rest of the world.

Second. That any such attempted justification will fail, for the reason that no blockade ordered by the President was know in England to have actually been enforced at the date of the cabinet determination to issue the proclamation of neutrality; and, had it been known at that date, was just the act which called for explanation from international good will and courtesy, rather than an act to be visited with the harsh and summary treatment of raising a band of insurrectionists to the level of equality with their rightful government.

Third. That Historicus is guilty of the grossest inaccuracies, not to say misstatements, in his attempt to convict Mr. Bright of trumping up a case for the Americans on the score of unjust complaints about premature recognition of confederate belligerency. First. That Earl Russell and Historicus are getting up a new issue for the justification of English haste in recognizing the confederates as belligerents-the old one being that there was a state of flagrant war between two duly organized governments.

The first element is the date on which the cabinet determination to issue the Queen's proclamation of neutrality was arrived at. This is important, because Historicus cites with a loud flourish of trumpets a dispatch of Lord Lyons to Earl Russell, dated April 22, 1861, and received in London May tenth, 1861, (a dispatch communicating the President's proclamation of blockade of April 19, and Jefferson Davis's proclamation threatening to issue letters of marque and reprisal, dated April 17,) and asks, in a tone of confident assurance, "what was the immediate duty of a government charged with the interest of British subjects all over the world, on the receipt of such a dispatch?" Now, unfortunately for the British government's "duty," the ministerial determination to raise the confederates to the standing of belligerents had been announced four days before this dispatch got to England!

I find, in Hansard's "Parliamentary Debates," (v. 162, p. 1566,) that Lord John Russell, the British secretary of state for foreign affairs, on the sixth day of May, in answer to questions put by Mr. Gregory, announced, in his place in Parliament, that the cabinet, having "consulted the law-officers of the Crown-the attorney-general, the solicitor-general, and the Queen's advocate-the government have come to the opinion that the southern confederacy of America, according to those principles which seem to them to be just principles, must be treated as a belligerent."

I desire to state that in subsequent extracts hereafter I shall italicize in the same manner, where I seek to give prominence to particular passages.

Of course the London Times and other confederate organs dilated the next morning upon the importance of this ministerial step. So that we have it fixed as an historical fact, to all posterity, that the authorized spokesman of the British cabinet officially announced to the House of Commons, on the 6th day of May, 1861, that the British government had resolved to recognize the confederates as a belligerent power. The home secretary, Sir George Cornwall Lewis, announced to the same body, on the 9th of the same May, that a proclamation of neutrality was about to be issued; and the proclamation itself actually bears date the 13th. But of course the blow at the integrity of the American government, or at American good will, shall I say? was leveled at the date of the 6th.

So that if Historicus (following the Blue Book) correctly states the date of the reception at the foreign office of the official copy of the President's proclamation of blockade, on which official communication of the document only, as he seems properly to consider, were the British government authorized to treat it as a valid state paper, it follows that the Queen's proclamation of neutrality could have had no connection with the American proclamation of blockade, inasmuch as the former preceded all official knowledge of the latter by at least three entire days.

How, then, could Lord Campbell or the law-advisers of the Crown have given any such advice as Earl Russell is now sure that they gave, or, as Historicus is ready dogmatically to prove, a priori, that they could not help but have given?

But supposing that the telegraph or the newspapers had brought to the foreign office, at an earlier date than the 6th of May, the upshot and effect of the blockade proclamation, or even what purported to be a summary of its contents, (of which I am free to confess that I make no question; indeed, I purpose presently to quote a dispatch of Earl Russell's to Lord Cowley of that date, distinctly assuming a knowledge of its existence,) and supposing further, that the law advisers of the Crown were willing to give their opinion upon the scope and bearing of the proclamation without having the official text before them, (which I must confess I can hardly for a moment believe would either have been asked or expected of them,)* let us see if Earl Russell's new theory is borne out by the other attending facts and probabilities belonging to the case.

In the first place, I beg my readers to look at the contemporaneous explanation of motives accompanying the announcement of the determination of her Majesty's government to extend to the rebels the status of belligerents, put forth by Earl Russell himself.

I have already quoted from Hansard a part of the foreign secretary's declaration on the 6th of May. I now go back and give a few sentences earlier:

"With respect to belligerent rights in the case of certain portions of a State being in insurrection, there was a precedent which seems applicable to this purpose, in the year 1825. The British government at that time allowed the belligerent rights of the provisional government of Greece, and in consequence of that allowance the Turkish government made a remonstrance. I may state the nature of that remonstrance and the reply of Mr. Canning. The Turkish government complained that the British government allowed to the Greeks a belligerent character, and observed that it appeared to forget that to subjects in rebellion no national character could properly belong. But the British government informed Mr. Stratford Canning that the character of belligerency was not so much a principle as a fact; that a certain degree of force and consistency acquired by any mass of population engaged in war entitled that population to be treated as a belligerent, and, even if their title were questionable, rendered it the interest, well understood of all civilized nations, so to treat them; for what was the alternative? A power or a community (call it which you will) which was at war with another and which covered the sea with its cruisers, must either be acknowledged as a belligerent or dealt with as a pirate; which latter character as applied to the Greeks was loudly disclaimed."

*I believe that it will turn out on investigation that the foreign office at the date of the 6th of May, 1861, and until the receipt of Lord Lyons's dispatch referred to, on the 10th, had not even a correct or complete newspaper copy of the blockade proclamation before it, upon which to act or to solicit an opin ion from the Crown lawyers. From what investigation I am able to give the subject, looking to two leading London journals and various American newspapers, I am led to believe that up to the 6th of May no other abstract or suminary of the proclamation was known, on the other side of the Atlantic, than that contained in the telegraphic summary from Washington to the New York daily newspapers of April 20, communication being interrupted on that day between Washington and New York, and continuing so interrupted till the 27th, which summary, instead of giving the text of the proclamation, recites as an item of news, "The President has issued a proclamation that an insurrection against the government of the United States," &c., giving all the body of the proclamation except the last important sentence, which denounces the penalties of piracy against all who molest United States vessels, [under Jefferson Davis's commissions of marque and reprisal.] but containing such interpolations as the President says," &c. [See, for instance, the London Daily News, of May 3, which copies this summary without the preamble or any signature of the President or Secretary of State.] The National Intelligencer of April 20, alone of American newspapers, I suspect, gave on that day what purported to be, and what actually was, the text of the proclamation. But this newspaper, I am quite confident, did not find its way to England till it was carried out by the packet which bore Lord Lyons's official copy of the President's proclamation, communicated to him from the State Department.

So that, according to this, while Earl Russell was likening the rebels to the struggling Greeks and the federal government to their Turkish oppressors-undesignedly, perhaps, though it was bitterly complained of at the time by the upholders of the Union cause he was approving and acting upon Mr. Canning's dictum, that "belligerency is not so much a principle as a fact, and that a certain degree of force and consistency acquired by any mass of population engaged in war entitles that population to be treated as a belligerent."

What is there here which reads like the President's proclamation not merely "entitling" but requiring the British government to treat the declaration of blockade as tantamount to a declaration of war against the South? On the contrary, is not the inference unavoidable, that "the principles which seemed (to the law advisers) to be the just principles" for recognizing a state of belligerency on the part of the South were those sanctioned by the high authority of Canning, and acted upon under his lead in the case of the Greeks versus the Turks?

In the next place, I beg attention to the Queen's proclamation itself, as containing its own exposition of the motives which occasioned its issue. Herein I gladly follow Historicus, who challenges Mr. Bright to go over the instrument with him, and see how harmlessly impartial and unnoticeably inefficient are its provisions. If it be true that Mr. Bright had never read or closly scanned these provisions, as Historicus presumes to believe, then I can only say that I venture to suggest that Mr. Bright has much better got at its scope by hearsay and on trust than his critic, with all his refinements and improvements, who undertakes to say that it is based upon the American proclamation of blockade, and who, in a gross confounding together of the English and American proclamations, (or something worse,) interpolates into the latter an important paragraph, belonging only to the former and wholly perversive of its leading intent.

Says the Queen's proclamation, then, in its recital clause:

"Whereas hostilities have unhappily commenced between the government of the United States of America and certain States styling themselves the Confederate States of America"--not, whereas certain proclamations of blockade and of threat to issue letters of marque and reprisal have been published by President Lincoln and Mr. Jefferson Davisand (going on]"whereas we have declared our royal determination to maintain a strict and impartial neutrality in the contest between the said contending parties"-not, whereas we are compelled to define our position in the state of constructive warfare consequent upon the federal manifesto-[we therefore have thought fit] "to issue this our royal proclamation; and we do hereby strictly charge and command all our loving subjects to observe a strict neutrality in and during the aforesaid hostilities." It then goes on to recite the terms of the foreign enlistment act, (which Historicus says is never operative except in case of war,) and concludes with the denunciation and exposition of the specific acts of entering the military or marine service of either party, &c., which will be contrary to her Majesty's good pleasure, and will forfeit her countenance and protection as against either belligerent.

Thus summarized, is not this instrument as positive an assertion of her Majesty's behest and injunction that her subjects shall not intermingle in a flagrant war that has actually broken out and is now raging between the two belligerent factions of the American republic as words can frame? At any rate, does it not fully negative the notion that her Majesty's advisers had only in mind a constructive, and not an actual state of hostilities?

The only allusion to a blockade throughout the proclamation is, if anything, a more offensive announcement to the American government-who were sedulously insisting that the outbreak was only an insurrection, and to be smothered by a blockade withont the use of force-than the perverse assertion that there was already a state of flagrant war itself. It occurs toward the end of the document, where British subjects, among other unneutral acts, are forbidden to "break, or endeavor to break, any blockade, lawfully or actually established, by or on behalf of either of the said contending parties." To think of its being suggested to an American, on the 6th day of May, 1861, that the northern ports were blockaded, or in danger of being blockaded, by a rebel navy!

But let us look outside of the proclamation for further contemporaneous explanation of its motives. The American minister, Mr. Adams, as Mr. Bright notices, had not yet reached England, though momentarily expected there, and though his arrival within a few days, or even hours, might almost be predicted with mathematical certainty, as bis sailing from Boston had already been announced. In fact, he landed at Liverpool the evening of the 13th, and was probably met by the newsboys crying the proclamation as he drove up from the steamboat to his lodgings. He hastened to London the 14th, and as soon as possible after, allowing for a few days' delay occasioned by a domestie bereavement which had befallen Lord Russell, obtained an interview with the foreign secretary.

The subject of the recognition of the confederates as belligerents was, of course, one of the leading topics of this interview. Mr. Adams has set down in his dispatch to his gov2 A C-VOL. IV

ernment, dated May 21, 1861, the full particulars of this (to him) most interesting commencement of his ministerial career. It will be found in the "President's Message and Accompanying Documents for 1862," and there covers some six pages. Not one word of this dispatch, from beginning to end, speaks of recognition being rendered necessary by the President's proclamation of blockade. On the contrary, the representation then made by Lord Russell is summed up in the following sentence, p. 92:*

"A necessity seemed to exist [as Lord Russell urged] to define the course of the government in regard to the participation of the subjects of Great Britain in the impending conflict. Their conclusion had been that, as a question merely of fact, a war existed." Earl Russell himself furnishes a report of this same interview to Lord Lyons, to be found in the Parliamentary Blue Book for 1862, (“North America, No. 1," p. 34.) † His own version, thus afforded, contains nothing at all at variance with Mr. Adams's account, but, on the contrary, fully corroborates it in important particulars. Thus, in a paragraph relating to full recognition of rebel independence, which Mr. Adams seemed to feel apprehensive of as the next step, Earl Russell reports himself as using the following language, quite upsetting any theory of a state of constructive belligerency :

"I said that we had taken no step except that of declaring ourselves neutral, and allowing to the southern States a belligerent character; that the size and population of the seceding States were so considerable that we could not deny them that character."

Some allusion, to be sure, is made in both reports to the American blockade, but only to the point to inquire how complete the American government proposed to make it. Now, I beg to ask if it is within the bounds of possibility that, if the proclamation of nentrality had been based upon the President's proclamation of blockade, (as Earl Russell says it was, quoting the Lord Chancellor,) no allusion should have been made to it by the foreign secretary in this interview? Here was Mr. Adams seeking an immediate interview, and demanding, with suppressed sensibility, if not with uncontrolled excitability, what was the meaning of this piece of unexpected and unwelcome conduct of England toward his government. And here, on the other hand, was the foreign secretary, fresh from the cabinet council and from contact with the lord chancellor and his legal associates, undertaking to explain the reasons of so grave and unfriendly a step on the part of his government, in the least offensive and yet most simple manner. Is it in human nature, if he could have replied to Mr. Adams-"It is all the fault of your President's proclamation; it is an unavoidable necessity, forced on us by him"that he would not have surely done so?

It is very noticeable, in the same connection, that Earl Russell, when called upon to vindicate the issuing of the proclamation of neutrality on an emergency similar to that created by Mr. Adams's first official interview, and as late as September 25, 1863, namely, in his Blairgowrie speech in reply to Mr. Sumner's address at the Cooper Institute in New York, September 10, 1863, omits all allusion to the proclamation of blockade as one of the justifying motives for the declaration of British neutrality. Mr. Sumner had insisted, with great vehemence and power, that the declaration of neutrality, or of "equality" between the national government and "the rebel slave-mongers," was not only "an insult to the national government," but " a moral absurdity, offensive to reason and all those precedents which make the glory of the British name." And he had proceeded to charge upon it such bitter and momentous consequences that one would suppose that no possible stimulant could have been wanting to induce the foreign secretary to revive all the justifications which memory could conjure up to palliate the measure of "investing" the rebels" with all the rights and prerogatives of a belligerent." What had Earl Russell to say in reply?

This was his justification, according to the report of his speech in the London Times of September 28:

"Our course on the subject [of neutrality] has been attacked and blamed in the bitterest terms-blamed sometimes by the federals and sometimes by the confederates. The first offense was felt by the federals. They said we had no right to grant, so far as we were concerned, to the confederates the rights of belligerents. Well, now, gentlemen, that question of the rights of belligerents is a question of fact. I put it to you whether, with 5,000,000 people-5,000,000, I mean, of free men-declaring themselves in their several States collectively an independent State, we could pass over that as a petty rebellion? Our admirals asked whether the ships they met bearing the confederate flag should be treated as pirates or no. If we had treated them as pirates we should have been taking part in that contest. (Cheers.) It was impossible to look on the uprising of a community of five millions of people as a mere petty insurrection, (hear, hear,) or as not having the rights which at all times are given to those who, by their numbers and importance, or by the extent of territory they possess, are entitled to these rights. (Cheers.) Well, it was said we ought not to have done that because they were a community of slaveholders, &c."

So that at this juncture, again, there is no word about a blockade; but the old posi tion of "a question of fact," and "a great community of rebel subjects." Truly, if *See near the bottom of page 183, Vol. I, of this compilation.

† See Vol. I, p. 187, of this compilation.